The sponsor of the Jaipur Literature Festival announced a “long list†of the best recent South Asian fiction this week, dominated by Indian and Indian-origin authors.
The 16 writers on the list, released Tuesday, hail from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Britain, and four are first-time novelists. Topics range from opium addiction to an unlikely relationship between a courtesan and a wrestler.
The award, introduced by the infrastructure company DSC Limited in 2010, is for fictional work in English that is about South Asia, but is not limited to South Asian writers. The cash prize of $50,000 has quickly made it a coveted award, with more than 80 writers entering the contest this year.
The Indian poet K. Satchidanandan, who led this year's five-member jury, said there was “an unprecedented response†worldwide to the call for submissions.
Mr. Satchidanandan said that even though the authors came from “different linguistic and cultural backgrounds,†they demonstrated a deep understanding of South Asia in their work.
The jury will announce a short list of five or six writers on Nov. 20, and the winner will be announced in January at the Jaipur Literature Festival.
The final list of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize will also be announced at the festival. That winner of that prize will take home 60,000 pounds ($97,000).
When it is not sponsoring literary events and awards, DSC spearheads heavy-duty rail and road projects in India, including building the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. (That's right - the very highway that Jaipur Literature Festival attendees coming from Delhi will take.)
Here is the long list:
- Jamil Ahmad: The Wandering Falcon (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin India)
- Alice Albinia: Leela's Book (Harvill Secker, London)
- Tahmima Anam: The Good Muslim (Penguin Books)
- Rahul Bhattacharya: The Sly Company of People Who Care (P icador, London)
- Roopa Farooki: The Flying Man (Headline Review/ Hachette, London)
- Musharraf Ali Farooqi: Between Clay and Dust (Aleph Book Company, India)
- Amitav Ghosh: River of Smoke (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin India)
- Niven Govinden: Black Bread White Beer (Fourth Estate/ Harper Collins India)
- Sunetra Gupta: So Good in Black (Clockroot Books, Massachusetts)
- Mohammed Hanif, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti (Random House India)
- Jerry Pinto: Em and the Big Hoom (Aleph Book Company, India)
- Uday Prakash: The Walls of Delhi (Translated by Jason Grunebaum; UWA Publishing, W. Australia)
- Anuradha Roy: The Folded Earth (Hachette India) Saswati Sengupta: The Song Seekers (Zubaan, India)
- Geetanjali Shree: The Empty Space (Translated by Nivedita Menon; Harper Perennial/ Harper Collins India)
- Jeet Thayil: Narcopolis ( Faber and Faber, London)
